


Seasons

by Pharmockery



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Hades is Brooding, Mildly adult themes, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pharmockery/pseuds/Pharmockery
Summary: The mind of Lord Hades is not, however, on his wayward son. It is fixed, firmly in contemplation, on the seasons. Demeter’s rage has frozen the ground, but Lord Hades had never much cared for the surface, anyway. No, he is contemplating something—someone else entirely, struck silent by the parallels between the harvest goddess and her beautiful, gentle, lying daughter.Their courtship had begun in the spring...OrLord Hades contemplates how it had happened.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone, Hades/Persephone (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 49





	Seasons

The stars glitter from the rippling water as Hades stands before it, heavy cape wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Behind him, in the Temple of Styx, he knows Zagreus pushes forward, ever yearning for the freedom he thinks he wants.

The mind of Lord Hades is not, however, on his wayward son. It is fixed, firmly in contemplation, on the seasons. Demeter’s rage has frozen the ground, but Lord Hades had never much cared for the surface, anyway. No, he is contemplating something— _someone_ else entirely, struck silent by the parallels between the harvest goddess and her beautiful, gentle, _lying_ daughter.

Their courtship had been the spring, as much as stealing her away in the middle of the night mere hours after they met can be considered a courtship. Her arms wrapped tight around his middle as they fled to the very bottom of the Underworld, out of the prying eyes and speculative gaze of the Olympians. Oh, she had wanted to wish her mother goodbye, but he had bidden her not. Demeter was as fierce then as she was now, and any attempt by her daughter to leave would have met with the same resistance a seedling meets on the frozen ground.

But after they’d reached the House, spring had truly bloomed. She was a calming presence, something Hades now, after everything, took to be _weakness_ , but for the time she had spent there a change had come across him. He indulged her terribly, ever reaching for that glorious, _radiant_ smile, or the tinkling music of her laugh. She was shy, at first, respectful and demure around him, almost as if he had _rescued_ her from Olympus, when in reality she had rescued him from an eternity of isolation. She had not felt right, there upon Olympus, like she didn’t quite belong—but soon, like a blossom opening, she confessed that here, in the Underworld, she felt better than she had before. The spring had seen growth—of her heart and his. There was still work to be done in the Underworld, yes, but not nearly as much—and he could rest easy in her arms when they stole a moment of privacy. Like so many blind fools, Hades thought now, spring had seemed the pinnacle of optimism.

Their marriage was the summer—done under the eyes of Nyx, of her sons, of other residents of the House who celebrated jubilantly that their dour, severe Lord had bound himself to someone who so calmed his temper. No work was done then, for he could hardly bear to leave her side, hours upon hours spent cloistered in their chambers indulging her every desire as she did his. More than once did a wayward Shade cross their path and see something they shouldn’t have, but back then, Lord Hades was veritably _forgiving_.

This did not mean, of course, displays of affection in the middle of the House, for all to see. No, Lord Hades was—and more so, now—a very private individual, and attentive to his work. When he took counsel from his shades, and the minor gods who worked for him, she stood attentively to the side, as stern as he could be, at times. Her gentleness could be seen with the way she spoiled Cerberus, and opposed when encountering a monster of the world above, slain and waiting for judgement in Erebus. Her softness turned to sharp edges, a cruelty about her that he should have seen as a _warning_ for things to come. Despite this, he loved her, worshipped her, was practically enslaved to her, as he hoped she was to him.

He truly—truly thought their hearts were entwined, like vines twirled together, although perhaps, like the summer does to mortals, it made him blind. When the world is alive, and the forest is filled a-plenty, it became typical of humans to forget that autumn was just beyond.

Lord Hades had never—would ever—compare himself to a mortal. But he could make a concession that then, in the peak of his summer with her, he had been foolish to forget that _all things must end_.

Autumn was sly, however. A creeping chill to their interactions that he did not even see until it was too late. A sharpness to her words when they disagreed, or a longing in her eyes that was there regardless of how frequently he tried to chase it away. When she sang, the songs that had been full of hope, and then joy, turned to slow and hollow tunes.

She hid it from him, at first, and he was oblivious. In hindsight, he saw how she slept with her back to him, opposed to how she had slept upon his chest during the height of summer. He saw how she lingered in the courtyard with her food, rather than dine with him. At the time, she had simply said she felt concern for whatever the latest problem with Tartarus was, and wanted to think of a solution.

Like a fool, he had simply pushed further. He gripped her hand when she went to leave the table, bidding her to stay and eat with him. He kept Cerberus close to him, forcing either the Hound who saw them both as _master_ to disobey or his quiet, silent wife to sit to his right when he held court.

Hades realised how far she had drifted when they argued. When she quietly invited him to the courtyard to watch some visiting Elysium champions spar in their honour, and he had simply gestured to the pile of paperwork he had awaiting him. Her face had twisted into a scowl.

“ _They are here in_ our _honour, Husband, and you would snub them?_ ”

“ _You would have me disregard the maintenance of the Underworld for the egos of a few Shades?”_

_“I would have you act as a gentleman and Lord should! Not like some boorish paper-pusher!”_

_“You dare speak to me that way?”_

_“I dare speak to my Lord Husband however I want!”_

Something had changed in him, too, he knew. During their summer he would have simply smoothed it over, swept her into a kiss once they departed prying eyes, and gone along to please her, to see that smile light her face. But he didn’t want to—couldn’t—for there was work to be done, and she was a fool not to see that. After that argument, she had slept elsewhere for a few days or nights, before slinking back into his bed without a single word said, probably only for proprietaries sake.

Summer still lingered, though—he brought her tokens of his affection once in a while, and she pressed her lips upon his, more so from both parties when nectar was involved. Now, he is inclined to think she cared only for maintaining the public image, although a nectar fuelled flurry of passion in their private atrium had always given him cause to doubt. The circumstance of one event—and the memories of her skin on his—gave him pause when thought back to when she first must have hated him. How could someone who hated his very being make themselves so vulnerable before him, for there is little else that makes one more so than _that_ particular act. And she had whispered—shouted at one point—his name, and that gave him pause too.

The fact he had hissed her name too made him reconsider if he had cooled so thoroughly towards her at that time, despite how he had convinced himself that he had started to hate her too.

But days of sunshine in the middle of autumn do not change the indomitable fact that winter will still arrive. When he awoke one day—or night—to find her gone for good, that was the true sign that the season had changed, and winter was there.

Now, when Lord Hades looks upon the surface, which has been wintered for far longer than should be reasonable, he thinks he knows how it feels. Cold, lost, and forsaken, with only the harshest things surviving. And deep, deep below the frost and the ice, something warm—a hope that one day, spring will return.

**Author's Note:**

> My best friend gave me this prompt and I took some time to write it. It's never gonna be perfect, but I think it turned out quite well.


End file.
